In our series #GMinyourgarden, we’re peeking over the fence into gardens across the country to explore their places in our lives today. This week, Alison’s garden near Bath (@damsonfarm):
“Damson Farm is in a quiet valley near Bath once full of market gardens. When we moved here 15 years ago the garden was just a closely mown field used to exercise dogs. Gradually it has evolved into a much wilder, softer and more diverse space with meadow merging into more cultivated areas.
This is the edible garden where I experiment with growing unusual varieties, perennial vegetables, self-sowers and edible flowers. Wild marjoram, alpine strawberries and ox eye daisies creep through the gravel paths, there are nasturtiums clambering through the peppermint chard and Korean mint, clouds of self-sown radish seed pods and wild rocket, and Japanese wineberries clothing the walls.
It’s quite wild so there is a constant dance between chaos and order, knowing when to intervene and when to let go.
I’m curious about what it means to be a gardener in an era of environmental crisis. How do we create conditions that allow life to flourish rather than deteriorate? How can we create a garden that looks beautiful, puts food on the table and also functions as part of a thriving ecosystem?
I run a workshop programme here to explore some of these ideas. I gain so much from sharing the space with others and seeing the garden become a place for a wider community of people to enjoy and learn from too.
There is so much to learn about the intricate nature of these complex webs of interdependence, which is what I find so exciting about the process of gardening.”
Follow along with our #GMInYourGarden series on Instagram @gardenmuseum